


Hungry Heart

by dogsbody32



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Very Extremely AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2279592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogsbody32/pseuds/dogsbody32
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark plans on an ordinary weapons test.</p><p>Maria Hill plans on uneventful escort duty.</p><p>Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Went out for a Ride (and I Never Went Back)

**May 18, 2010.**

**Kunar Province, Afghanistan.**

 

The plan: Stark would fly into Bagram, trumpet Jericho until the funding walls came down, and fly back out again.

Four hours, start to finish, even including ground transportation to and from the test range _and_ half an hour of greasing generals' palms afterwards.

Talbot's orders: "Stark stops to take a piss on the road, Major, I expect your final report to tell me what color and how much."

Word around base was that Talbot's last two majors had both been shot down and spun in before the promotions board. She had ambitions to have at least three stars on each shoulder board before retirement.

So Maria Hill kept her thoughts about babysitting Tony Stark to herself, and saluted, and said, "Yes, sir."

 

The package started talking when he deplaned. He looked at her over the rims of cheap-looking sunglasses which probably cost more than her monthly take-home. "Good God," he'd said, "you're a woman!"

"Come on, Tony." Rhodes's hat was crooked on his head, and she could smell the alcohol on his breath. "Let's not do that to the major." He looked over at Hill, apologetic.

"Well, she is, isn't she?"

"And now you're talking about her like she's not standing right there," said Rhodes. "I can't take you anywhere, man."

Stark was looking at her again. "Well, you are, aren't you? You've got the bone structure of a classical statue. What's a face like yours doing in a cat box like this?"

"Preventing yours from being blown off," she said with the equanimity born from years of military service.

"See, Rhodey? If we were any faster friends, we'd be burning jet fuel. Speaking of which," he said, "don't let them drop that second crate."

She suspected he would never stop talking.

 

In the convoy after the Jericho test, Stark was silent for three minutes.

Well, two.

Thirty seconds.

Hill liked to dream big.

Then AC/DC started chunking out of the boombox between seats, and the dream was over before it had properly begun.

 

"I feel like you're driving me to a court-martial," Stark said. "This is crazy. What did I do? I feel like you're gonna pull over and snuff me." A1C Denver looked back at him from the passenger seat. "What, you're not allowed to talk?"

"They're allowed to talk, Mr. Stark," Hill said. "But they're supposed to keep eyes forward at all times."

"Sorry, major."

"Oh, I see. It's just personal."

"No," said Airman Lane, behind the wheel. Thank Christ at least one of them understood protocol. "You just intimidate us."

"So it _is_ personal," said Hill.

"Two women in one day. Will wonders never cease?"

Lane laughed. "What will they think of next, right, major?"

"Today the Air Force," said Hill. "Tomorrow the world."

"See, cheekbones here," he said, crooking his neck in her direction, "she's impossible to miss." It would be so easy to shoot him. It would be so hard to explain. "But you? Never would have guessed. I mean, I'd apologize, but isn't that what we're going for here? I thought of you as a soldier first."

"I'm an airman," said Lane.

"That means she's in the Air Force," said Hill.

Stark glanced over. "Duh and/or hello. Regardless of what Rhodey might have told you, I'm not a complete idiot, Major Pain."

"Of course not. You just play one on TMZ."

Denver laughed.

"Hey, maybe that Christmas tree had it coming. What do you know about it? Were you in that lobby?" Stark drank from his tumbler. "How about you?"

"I was not there, sir," Lane said. "I'll have to take your word for it."

"Sir." Denver twisted in his seat again. "I have a question to ask." Twice in one ten minute trip. This was going in his file.

"Yes, please."

"Is it true you went 12 for 12 with last year's Maxim cover models?"

"For Christ's sake, Denver," said Lane.

Hill sighed, wiped the condensation off the window.

"That is an excellent question. Yes and no. March and I had a scheduling conflict, but fortunately, the Christmas cover was twins. Anything else?"

"I'm curious," said Hill, watching the scenery outside the window and Stark's reflection in it at the same time. "Would it be possible for you to stop talking for a minute?"

"What did I do to get on your bad side?" Stark took another sip of his drink.

"Five minutes back to base," said Hill. "You want that list alphabetically or chronologically?"

He looked at her, lips pursed like he was seriously considering the question when

the ground

shook

the air

cracked

the next humvee

exploded

Lane

died

Denver

screamed

Hill

pushed

Stark

down.

 

Civilian behavior.

Impossible to predict in a firefight.

Stark ran for the nearest ridge, face-first in his cell phone.

Hill chased, screaming after him loud enough to shred her voice.

Hoping it was loud enough.

Something landed heavy in the dirt before them.

What he shouted sounded like "Fuck a duck!"

His suit tore when she threw him backwards.

A thousand pinpoints of light bloomed in her chest and her face and her hearing and --

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue taken from _Iron Man_.
> 
> All characters copyright 2014 by Marvel and Disney, all rights reserved, you know the drill as well as I.
> 
> Title and chapter title from Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart", natchy.


	2. Daybreak at the Bottom of the Lake

First, there was pain.

There were silhouettes, blurry, washed out by a light which buzzed and stung, and there was pain.

There were voices, high and hard, some spitting venomous words in what sounded like Pashto and some pleading in English, and there was pain.

There was a weight on her chest, greasy and dense, and a vibration she could feel in her bones, and there was pain.

Her chest, her skin, her chest, her arms, her chest, her heart, her chest.

A fire burning in a place where any kind of flame told you something was wrong.

One day, she was marginally more awake and it hurt fractionally less. Kicking up to the surface, she found herself on her back in a cool dark place.

Sitrep, she told herself.

Her right side dragged when she tried to move, which was how she found the wires. Tied to something. Tied to what? Tied to a car battery, turned out, when she turned her head to find it resting on a table beside her.

Copy.

Her fingers followed the wires to a metal cylinder on her breastbone under her tank top, wires and screws poking through the thin grease-stained cotton under her fingertips.

Copy.

Another wire snaking up her nose, and right now, that took top priority.

She coughed as she pulled it out, repeated name rank serial number under her breath as a call to action, and coughed again.

The fire in her chest blazed anew.

Minimal motion for the time being.

Copy.

Stone walls. Deep shadows. Bright white fluorescent lights. A handful of work tables, missiles and military hardware in various states of disassembly. Cold air burning her lungs with every breath. Probably a cave somewhere in the Hindu Kush. Impossible to guess where.

Copy.

Tony Stark?

She sat up. She tried to sit up. The fire in her chest nearly slammed her back down horizontal against the cot.

Panting and breathless, she at least forced herself to roll over.

A man who definitely wasn't Stark hummed a folk melody as he scraped at his face with a safety razor. He studied his handiwork in a jagged slab of mirror, then looked over his shoulder to face her. "Welcome back to the land of the living," he said.

"Stark," she hissed from a parched throat.

"I'm a little harder to get rid of than that," said the man himself from somewhere out of her view.

Copy.

"What the hell did you do to me?" She coughed again, dry, every movement sparking flame across her torso.

" _We_ ," said Stark, "saved your life. Featured it was the least I could do after you, you know." He limped into her line of sight. His arm in a makeshift sling, he shrugged. "With the bomb and everything."

There were bruises around his eyes, scratches across his face, a slump to the shoulder which wasn't wrapped up.

A tremor in his hand she hadn't seen before.

Their captors weren't gentle.

Copy.

"How long have I been out?"

"A few days." The bald man set the razor down on a large rock by the mirror. "Perhaps more."

"Kind of hard to tell time when you're squatting in the dark like a tech guru with the runs at Burning Man."

"I removed all the shrapnel I could," said the bald man.

"How much couldn't you remove?"

"In my village, we call people with injuries like yours" -- he glanced over at Stark -- "the walking dead. It takes about a week for the shrapnel to reach vital organs. In your case, it was a lot less."

"Don't forget to tell her what else she's won," said Stark.

"What the hell is this thing?" She fingered the greasy steel plate again. It hurt to touch. It hurt to breathe. It hurt, period, and she could practically feel the staph infection creeping into her veins.

"An electromagnet."

"To keep the shrapnel out of my heart?"

"Don't forget the battery," added Stark. "Yeah. So long as the juice holds out, honey, you'll be a little more walking and a lot less dead."

"And how long will the juice hold out?"

"Allah plans," said the bald man after an uncomfortable silence, "and Allah is the best of planners."

"That means -- "

"I _know_ what it means."

"Good news is," said Stark, "we've been working on something a little more permanent. Just taking a little longer than we expected. You know how it goes when you're trying to break down surplus missiles for palladium."

"I do, actually," she said.

Stark looked skeptical, but it was the bald man who spoke first.

"But where are my manners? My name is Ho Yinsen. Tony Stark, I gather, you are already acquainted with. Might I ask your name? He just kept referring to you as 'Major Pain'."

"Major Maria Hill." She thought about trying to sit up, and then decided to cough again instead. "United States Air Force."

It hurt either way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grappling seriously with Marvel's product is now totally beyond my philosophy, and so does "A 946430" remain dead and buried. 
> 
> This spiky, value-pack-serving AU, on the other hand...


End file.
